I have never
once thought of believing that they were specially created to be lesser
lights to the Earth.

And now let me quote from that grand book of Richard A. Proctor's, _The
Expanse of Heaven_, a fine passage descriptive of some of the wonders of
the "Milky Way":

There are stars in all orders of brightness, from those which
(seen with the telescope) resemble in lustre the leading glories
of the firmament, down to tiny points of light only caught by
momentary twinklings. Every variety of arrangement is seen.
Here the stars are scattered as over the skies at night; there
they cluster in groups, as though drawn together by some irresistible
power; in one region they seem to form sprays of stars like
diamonds sprinkled over fern leaves; elsewhere they lie in
streams and rows, in coronets and loops and festoons, resembling
the star festoon which, in the constellation Perseus, garlands
the black robe of night. Nor are varieties of colour wanting
to render the display more wonderful and more beautiful. Many
of the stars which crowd upon the view are red, orange, and yellow
Among them are groups of two and three and four (multiple stars
as they are called), amongst which blue and green and lilac and
purple stars appear, forming the most charming contrast to the
ruddy and yellow orbs near which they are commonly seen.

Millions and millions--countless millions of suns. Innumerable galaxies
and systems of suns, separated by black gulfs of space so wide that no
man can realise the meaning of the figures which denote their stretch.
Suns of fire and light, whirling through vast oceans of space like
swarms of golden bees. And round them planets whirling at thousands of
miles a minute.

And on Earth there are forms of life so minute that millions of them
exist in a drop of water. There are microscopic creatures more beautiful
and more highly finished than any gem, and more complex and effective
than the costliest machine of human contrivance. In _The Story of
Creation_ Mr. Ed. Clodd tells us that one cubic inch of rotten stone
contains 41 thousand million vegetable skeletons of diatoms.

I cut the following from a London morning paper:

It was discovered some few years ago that a peculiar bacillus
was present in all persons suffering from typhoid, and in all
foods and drinks which spread the disease. Experiments were